Reading Forgiveness by Iyanla Vanzant - it's a 21 day step by step approach to forgiving. An interesting, useful exercise to go through. It strongly encourages journaling every day as part of the process.

Day 1 was about forgiving yourself for all the oh-so-human mistakes you might have made during life. We're all human, we all make mistakes. Learn the lesson, and focus on doing better. The beating-yourself-up over a past that can't be changed saps energy that could be used to make better choices going forward.

Easy to consider logically, but harder to put into practice. Still, her point is to work on it. Each time you work on it you get a bit better, and all that energy you free up can now be used for good purpose.

Do you beat yourself up over past mistakes? Can you try to release even a portion of that emotion and to accept you have learned from it?

Day 2 on #Forgiveness was to forgive your body. Come to terms with the shape and size it is. Whatever it is, this is where you begin from. This is so important to me, running a low carb website and working with people who are inundated with negative messages about their bodies. We are all on a journey. Our bodies are our "vessels" throughout life. We should care for them and appreciate them. To dislike them expends so much energy that could be better spent. No body is perfect! Every body deserves praise for carrying us around every day.

Do you care for and appreciate your body? Or do you tend to focus on a few negative aspects and only think about those?

#Forgiveness Day 3 = forgive your life. Interestingly, while Day 1 / yourself and Day 2 / body did bring up issues for me to work on, I'm fairly at peace with "life". I used to have angst about not getting my degree / not going to MIT even though I got in. But now I've earned my Leadership degree at Northeastern and I loved everything about it. So I'm content. I'm content with where I am in life and I adore what I do. My only real issue is the clutter, but we're working on that. I love watercoloring. I enjoy photography. I love working from home. So on the "life" front, I'm ok .

Forgiveness Day 4 - Forgive your #Mother - I imagine all people have high expectations for moms. They're only human . To forgive is divine. I had my rebellious teen moments and my breaking-away young adult moments. Hopefully now I'm in a place where I understand she did the best she could and I didn't always make it easy on her . Also, so many people my age have already lost their moms. I'm grateful to be able to talk and spend time with mine. So, like Day 3, this was a fairly easy day for me. Still, a good topic to ponder and consider.

Forgiveness Day 5 - Yes, Forgive your #Father . Dads have all sorts of bizarre expectations laden on them in our society. Tough & Gentle. There was a great SuperBowl commercial about a father leaping to save his child from all sorts of wild dangerous situations. We are trained to expect fathers to be that sort of superhero - always there, always protective, always dependable. The ultimate "Prince Charming". But few humans could live up to that! Dads do the best they can in juggling a variety of challenges. I'm fairly at peace with that.

Day 6 - Forgive God / Spirit / Cosmic Energy - This was easy for me. I tend to "blame" myself or other people - not outside forces. If there was a traffic jam or if I made a bad decision, it wouldn't occur to me to blame any outside entity for what happened. If there's a strong tornado, there's nobody to "blame". It is simply nature doing its natural activity. I'm sure we're all different in this regard.

Day 7 - Forgive Feelings. This meshes right in with my "aim to not complain" project. It's not about squelching emotions. It's about being aware when they begin, and find a way to aim that energy productively. If I sense myself starting to be cranky, I am mindful of it and figure out why. I get food, or a bathrobe to warm up, or I take a break. That way I don't let myself delve into stronger negative emotions for little reason. If something really is wrong - like a wrong order at a restaurant - I get it corrected without angst. If I get wildly cranky I forgive myself, try to figure out why it happened, and am more aware of that going forward.

Do you get swept away in strong negative feelings at times? Do you get a sense of what causes it? Stress hormones cause physical damage to the body. Is there a way to redirect the energy in another way?

Day 8 - Forgive Mistakes / Weaknesses. This seems the same as Day 1 but I suppose part of the point here is to keep working on "sticky points" to try to get better at them. So it's probably good to do another round of working on forgiving your own weaknesses. We all have them, and it's good to come to terms with them.

I think this is why it's good to meditate on one's blessings when one goes to bed, to remember just how much we have. The weaknesses seem less important then. Yes you want to work on them - if I'm weak in public speaking I want to practice. Still, I don't need to beat myself up over it. I smile and keep trying.

Do you work on your weaknesses? Or gently accept them? Or let them bug you?

Day 9 / Forgive your choices - this again seems similar to past days. I suppose the aim is to keep approaching issues from different angles until they're resolved. The idea is it's always easier to second-guess choices after the fact and after we know what happens. "In the moment" we can only do the best we can do. Accept that sometimes choices don't work out well, that we try our best going forward, and take those new days one step at a time.

I do try to make good choice - but it's sometimes hard to know. And sometimes there are just so many choices.

But, did you know, if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice?

Day 10 / Forgiveness and money. So many relationships collapse due to money issues. So many lives are stressed because of money. We get surrounded by images of things we "must have" - kids whine because they're poor, while they're playing with smart phones and watching large-screen TVs. Adults buy things on credit cards and are unable to pay them off. We spin our wheels on tasks which bring in little money.

I think this is a good topic for many of us to ponder. How do we feel about money? Are we upset about it? Envious? Petulant? Do we feel we deserve more? Ashamed we don't have enough? Think of all the better ways that energy could be used!

Imagine you're a waitress. If all day you're grumpy about money, your customers probably sense that unhappiness and don't give great tips. But if you're smiling and happy, and radiate joy while you help each table, you probably get larger tips. And that then equals more money .

Or at work if you're a happy, focused, team-building person, you probably get more raises and promotions on average than the distracted, grumpy person.